Monster Magnet’s Dave Wyndorf Talks New Album ‘Last Patrol,’ U.S. Touring + More

Monster Magnet‘s Dave Wyndorf was the guest on Full Metal Jackie’s radio show this past weekend. He talked about the new ‘Last Patrol’ disc, returning to tour the U.S. after years away and more. If you missed Jackie’s show, here’s her full interview with Monster Magnet’s Dave Wyndorf:

It’s Full Metal Jackie bringing you two full hours of metal each and every week. On the show with us, this week we have Dave Wyndorf from Monster Magnet. How are you Dave?

Very good. How are you Miss Jackie?

The ‘Last Patrol’ album has a lonely desolate quality to it. In terms of musical ambiance, what makes isolation and seclusion so comfortable to you?

I don’t know I mean … if it’s comfortable. It’s productive. You know? I think it’s like sensory deprivation. They put you in one of those tanks and they cut off all your senses. I think your brain will bleed out of its imagination. So, it has its upsides. I don’t know what happens to me. Sometimes I go to this part in my head; I mean you’re supposed to. I’m a writer, right? I’m supposed to do that and it comes out a little, a little bleak. But it’s not without redemption. There’s always a light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe it’s too much travel — a lot of time spent in front of a lot of people on tour because we tour all of the time. When I get home I don’t want to see anybody but I don’t want to be looked at as a hermit.

Dave, the album really is a return to the psychedelic style of older Monster Magnet albums. What veered the band away from full on psychedelic music and what really prompted a conscious return to form?

Well you know it’s like you can only do one certain style for a couple albums before you just start to get a little tired of it. And I mean Monster Magnet is about a lot of different styles. It’s hard rock. You know, there’s early ’70s. You know, straight on hard rock — Grand Funk Railroad, MC5, Stooges. Plus, there’s earlier psychedelic garage rock and also Hawkwind and Space Rock. All that stuff is Monster Magnet’s thing. That’s what I love. I love all of those kinds of music. So, it would make total sense for me to do a couple records that are totally spaced out and go, “You know I want to do one that’s right in your face.” Like, an in your face, like stomp of your foot thing. It all works in the same world to me. So, I did a couple albums like that. A little drier. A little bit more in your face. A little bit more stadium ready. Stadium ready rock!

It’s amazing how many people will give me trouble for that. Like what did you do? You sold out to space rock. And I’m like dude, how can you get mad at someone who loves all this cool music, you know? I may not play it to your taste but you can’t sue me for following the dream, you know! So, I always thought it was a good idea to do all of that stuff. And to turn the emphasis of Monster Magnet towards specific influences and I did the fist in the air rock thing for a while and then experiments with some other stuff and I knew it would always come back around to this. All you need is a little time from that stuff if you want to record it again. So, it’s all in the plan.

Dave, there’s quite a bit of material that didn’t make the new album that supposedly being put together as a companion to the new record, ‘Last Patrol.’ What kept those songs from making the album and why is it so important to make sure they’re released?

What kept it from being on the record, it just didn’t fit the sequence I had in mind. I wrote a bunch of stuff and you hope you can put all of these candles on this birthday cake kind of thing. Then I go, here’s the thing it’s ‘Last Patrol,’ then I realize, ‘Last Patrol’ is pretty god—n long. This is too long of a ‘Last Patrol.’ So, take out this one. The songs that don’t seem to suit the original sequence, I put them aside and see if they have a life somewhere else and it turned out they did.

So, I put a couple as bonus tracks on the ‘Last Patrol’ deluxe edition, as I like to say, and the rest will be put on this re-imagining of ‘Last Patrol,’ which is kind of a remix thing. It’s not a techno type of remix. It’s more of a using original tracks of music that I didn’t put on like organ tracks. More sitars, more Melotron spaced out stuff. And the other tracks that didn’t make it are decidedly psychedelic. Most of them very very stringy. Not very song oriented but more music oriented. So, it makes sense if I were to put out a re-imagining that these tracks would deserve to be on there because they were written in the same session. And actually they kind of flesh out the whole trip. I’m excited about it, it’s really cool. It’s not cheesy.

The band will be out on tour through mid-December. It’s the first U.S. tour in 10 years but over that time Monster Magnet has been active internationally. Did you always intend to bring the live show back to the States, and why now?

I always said, never say never to anything. I’m going to split the States for a while; the States weren’t buying what Monster Magnet had to sell. The last time I looked on the charts, psychedelic rock space rock wasn’t in big demand. So I went to the rest of the world to do it. I never said never to America, I just said let’s take a walk around the block and see if people are in a better mood. Next thing you know, 10 years went by I didn’t realize it was 10 years I was working so hard. So, when I was doing this record I called my manager and agent and said we have to go back to the States. I don’t care if I lose money. We have to see what’s going on. So here we are.

Dave it’s been so long since you’ve done a tour in the US; what are you looking forward to the most?

It’s people. It’s always people, who’s out there? What’s going on? What the hell is going on in my own country? I like to look people in the eye. It’s a great vantage point, from the stage. It’s higher than the floor. It’s always with music, not to sound too corny; it’s the best way for me to spend my time. It’s very communal. It’s a communal thing. People in a room, hopefully happy making me happy. The power of rock, Jackie. It actually exists.

Awesome. Good luck on this tour, congrats again on this record ‘Last Patrol.’ Really appreciate you being on the show for the very first time.

My pleasure.

This coming weekend, Full Metal Jackie will welcome Deicide‘s Glen Benton on her show. Full Metal Jackie can be heard on radio stations around the country — for a full list of stations, go to fullmetaljackieradio.com.

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